Deborah Camp (14 page)

Julia sat on a stool in front of a quilt, hung as a backdrop. Hands folded primly in her lap, she had her head bent in a diffident posture. Her smile was kind. Her hair looked dark, perhaps dark brown, and was stretched into a tight, tidy bun at her nape. Her dress was also a dark color with a high collar.

Elise brought the photograph closer and saw the lines at the corners of Julia’s eyes and around her mouth.

“Why, she looks older than Blade,” Elise whispered. She placed the photograph on the bureau again, wondering how she could bring up the subject of Julia’s age without offending Blade.

Gliding her fingertips across the quilted coverlet, she sized up the bed and fried to imagine Blade in it. He seemed better suited to his tepee, actually, although it peeved her that he slept out there instead of inside with her and Penny. Her toe bumped against a trunk positioned at the foot of the bed. She stepped back to study it and the padlock. The lock hung crookedly. Bending closer, Elise found it was unlocked. She straightened and tried to talk herself out of snooping. She failed.

The lid lifted, held onto the trunk by wobbly leather straps. Elise propped the lid back against the bed as the aroma of cedar surrounded her. She dropped to her knees and rested a hand on the top garment—a white dress with ivory buttons. Julia’s wedding dress? Lifting it, Elise peeked underneath to find a plush Indian blanket of tan and black and bright rust. Tucked at one end of it were papers tied with a shoelace, and a photograph album.

Elise looked inside the album, finding faded photos of what must have been Julia’s family back in California. There were no photos of Blade. What had his life been like as her husband? Had he been deliriously happy? Somehow, Elise didn’t think so. Something had gone wrong.

Feeling guilty for having poked around in what was none of her business, Elise closed the trunk lid. She left the room and sat at the kitchen table, her heart and head full. It was natural for her to long to know Blade better, she reasoned. After all, she was married to him, and if she expected to raise Penny and live under Blade’s roof, she must be prepared for the inevitable. While she was naive in some areas of human emotion, she was not so innocent as to be unaware of the male’s need to mate. Blade Lonewolf was no different from any other man in that respect.

Eventually, he would want to exert his rights as her husband. His needs would overpower him and … and what? What would it be like, her journey from maidenhood to womanhood?

She stared at a shaft of moonlight falling through the window and remembered his confession—he hadn’t been with a woman in a long time. A delicious shiver raced up her spine and a smile curved her lips. Oh, she was becoming such a little tart!

Laughing under her breath at her predicament, she lay her head down on her arms and let her thoughts drift like a cork on water. They carried her back into the tepee with Blade, and she dreamed of all the things that might have happened if she had chosen to stay.

C
arrying another basket of wet laundry to the lines strung between poles near the house, Elise stared across the flat farmland. She blinked and dropped the basket at her feet. Was the sun playing tricks on her, or was that … She shaded her eyes with one hand to get a better look at Blade riding bareback across the field. He was headed for the barn astride Bob, his Indian pinto pony.

With his shirt tied around his middle, his chest and arms gleaming in the sunlight, Blade was a living, breathing fantasy. He gripped the pony with strong legs and gathered handfuls of mane, using it to guide the halterless horse. Blue-black hair flowed over Blade’s head like dark ocean waves. He used his hat as a soft whip to get more speed out of Bob. Where was he going in such an all-fired hurry?

Elise had never seen anyone ride without a saddle or bridle, and she realized she was holding her breath, afraid he might fall from his mount at any moment. The pony slowed to a trot as he approached the barn and disappeared from Elise’s view.

“Drat,” she whispered, staring at the barn and
hoping to see the horse and rider again. Disappointed when they didn’t reappear, she looked at the laundry basket and chided herself. “Calm down, girl,” she said under her breath, then gave a short laugh. “If you don’t watch out, you’ll be infatuated with your husband!”

She was tempted to go check on Blade and discover what had brought him from his fields before midday, but then she decided he would call if he needed her. The sun was strong, and a stiff breeze flapped the shirts and dresses Elise secured to the lines with wooden pins.

Her muscles burned, so she paused to massage the small of her back and let her mind wander from the task. Anytime she gave her thoughts free rein, they raced to Blade, as they did now. Images of the tepee’s interior floated past her mind’s eye—the drawings, the candle’s glow painting the width of Blade’s bare chest, shoulders and face.

Closing her eyes, she could see him before her. Such a ruggedly handsome face with its high cheekbones, bold nose and sensuous mouth. From the first time she’d seen him, his looks had attracted her, in spite of all the stories she’d heard about the savagery of Indians. Something about him had made her believe that he was different, that the stories weren’t true at all. She recalled how gentle he’d been to the boy who had tried to escape the orphan train. She’d seen a glimpse of his heart then and had decided that he wasn’t a savage.

Opening her eyes, she stared sightlessly at the fields. Last night in the tepee stayed with her. She recalled inconsequential things—the sparse hair under his arms, the scar between his first and second ribs on the left side, a light brown birthmark below his navel. He’d spoken to her of lust and
he’d planted its seeds within her. She couldn’t think about Blade anymore without feeling flushed.

Now she had the sight of him riding bareback to add to her memories. If only Bob’s black mane and tail had been decorated with feathers and bits of silver! And Blade should have worn only a breechclout and moccasins. He should have carried a long spear instead of his hat!

Lonewolf, the great Indian brave! she thought with a smile. Had he ever
really
looked like the picture in her mind? Was this how his father had looked to his mother? If so, then it was no mystery why she’d decided to stay with him instead of returning to civilization.

Her situation wasn’t so different from mine, Elise thought. His mother had had no immediate family to return to, and Blade’s father had rescued her and offered her a home. Blade had rescued Elise, after a fashion, and he’d turned his home over to her, a white woman. Was that how he thought of her? Did he ever think of how it would be to kiss his new wife?

Snatching up a muslin bedsheet, Elise fumbled to find the corners. Did he ever fantasize about her? she wondered. Did he ever awaken from dreams so vivid and carnal that his body was drenched with sweat and his heart felt as if it had exploded in his chest and his breath left his throat raw and scorched?

A pesky breeze galloped in from the north and flattened the wet sheet against the front of her. Blinded, Elise tried to pull the clinging fabric from her face. The sheet seemed to have a mind of its own, tenaciously grabbing her face and hands. Her fingers brushed against something solid. No,
someone
.
She moved back in alarm as the sheet was stripped away.

“Oh!” She found herself staring at Blade. He let go of the sheet and it fluttered like a sail. He had put his shirt back on, but he was still hatless and gloveless.

“What are you doing at the house?”

“Checking on Janie. She didn’t eat much this morning.”

Elise looked toward the barn and the corral, where Blade kept Janie. “Penny wants to name the baby horse when it gets here. I told her I’d ask—well, heavens!” she exclaimed as the wind picked at the bedsheet again and plastered it to her side.

Laughing, she fought it off with Blade’s help. The fight loosened her hair, which she’d braided and pinned in a circle at the crown of her head. She felt the braid slide and swing like a pendulum against her back. Curling wisps clung to the corners of her eyes and mouth, and she pulled at the strands, still laughing under her breath.

“This laundry is getting the best of me,” she confessed. “I’m glad you showed up to help me fight the b-battle.” Her voice broke on the last word as the expression on his face registered, striking a corresponding chord deep inside her.

She hadn’t seen that particular expression on Blade’s face before, but she’d recognized it easily enough on other men. Her mind began to whirl and wobble like a loose wagon wheel. How long had he been watching her … what had happened to make him want to kiss her?

“I … Blade?” She waited for him to move first and realized that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to be kissed. He swallowed hard, and she
sensed he was fighting himself. His eyes darkened with desire.

He struck like lightning, his mouth moving over hers, hard and fast and brilliantly. His arms circled her and brought her up against his chest and stomach. He kissed her, not as if it were their first kiss but their last. Intense, powerful, masterful and so full of shattering emotion that Elise felt her knees give way. Curving one hand at the back of his neck, she buried her fingers in his wind-tangled, sun-warmed hair. She sagged in his arms, supported by his strength, her lips melting, parting, admitting the shock of his tongue.

His tongue! In her mouth, taking, ravaging, trying to mate with hers!

Elise gave a mighty push and stumbled backward out of his embrace. She stood apart from him, her lips burning from his kiss, her breath sawing in her throat, her chest heaving against the leaping of her heart.

The wind scampered across the land, snapping the sheets, billowing out empty sleeves and pant legs, cooling the fever of passion.

Blade slowly ran the back of his hand across his mouth in a gesture that wasn’t a wiping off but a rubbing in. His gaze played over her like a flame.

“We … that is, I can’t allow such liberties.” Elise winced at her prim words after her wanton behavior. “A kiss, yes, but you … well, it went beyond that.” What was she saying? Was she making any sense?

A rakish grin inched up one corner of his thieving mouth. “What, you’ve never had a man’s tongue in your mouth before? I thought you’d been courted all over Baltimore.”

“I have, but by gentlemen.”

He laughed without humor. “By
gentlemen
, hey?” Essaying a courtly bow, he mocked her. “Gentleboys, you mean.” He aimed a forefinger at her. “If you don’t like the way I kiss, then don’t be visiting my lodge and swinging your hips like a barn door in a windstorm!” With that, he strode toward the corral.

Elise stared after him, his parting words leaving her speechless. When had she swung her hips at him? Was he implying that she was
asking
for his attentions? Why, the nerve! She never in her life—

Liar
.

The single condemnation cut through her automatic denial that she was anything but a well-bred lady.

She’d asked for his kiss and she couldn’t blame him for obliging her. Certainly it wasn’t his fault that she had discovered too late that she’d grabbed a Missouri twister by the tail.

Was kissing with one’s tongue something done by Apache or all Indian tribes? She’d ask Airy, who seemed to know a little about everything.

Peering around the flapping laundry on the lines, Elise watched as Blade’s long legs carried him into the shadowy interior of the barn. She ran her tongue over her lips, which tingled from the onslaught of his kiss. She thought of Darby Rourke, the ladies’ man back in Baltimore. Even Darby couldn’t stack up to Blade Lonewolf when it came to kissing. And Darby wasn’t a boy! He just wasn’t quite so … so brazen.

Bending to the basket again, she removed another piece of laundry. As she finished her task, her mind kept returning to one singularly bothersome detail. When Blade’s tongue had courted hers, she
had responded in kind! If this was some kind of Indian way of kissing, then how had she known how to do it?

The jingle of harnesses sailed on the breeze, and Elise stepped around a billowing sheet to spy Airy Peppers’s mule-drawn wagon. Great day! Airy had brought her cousin Dixie, too! Elise waved happily, forgetting the laundry as she walked toward them.

Dixie Shoemaker doubled over in laughter and Airy Peppers slapped the tabletop again and again in a fit of hilarity.

Elise regarded them with annoyance. “It’s not
that
funny. I’m seeking your advice, not your guffaws.”

“Oh, dearie me.” Dixie wiped the tears from her eyes. “You think it’s an Indian custom?”

“I don’t know what to think. The men in Baltimore don’t do it, so I’m at a loss.”

“Honey child, the men in Baltimore didn’t do it to you, but they do it,” Airy assured her. “You put the brake on and stopped them before they could try a deeper kiss.
That’s
why you never experienced it before now.”

“But it’s not done just among Indians,” Dixie added with another laugh. “And that alone doesn’t make Blade a savage or a brute. He was only doing what comes naturally.”

“But
is
it natural?” Elise asked, leaning closer to the two visitors and lowering her voice. She glanced in Penny’s direction and was glad that her sister was still lost in her own world with her two doll babies. “I almost responded to him, but something tells me I shouldn’t and that I shouldn’t allow him to do such things to me. Isn’t it akin to a soiled dove’s behavior?”

“Well, if it is, then we’re
all
scarlet women,” Airy proclaimed.

Elise looked from Airy to Dixie. “You mean you’ve both … you’ve both …” She raised her eyebrows to finish the question.

“What?” Airy asked teasingly. “Have we both what? Been kissed? Yes, we confess.”

“Airy, you know what she’s asking,” Dixie chided, patting Elise’s hand. “Yes, dear, we’ve both been kissed in that way. It’s nothing to be ashamed of as long as you only allow special men the privilege.”